Recent Articleshttp://prospect.org/authors/127439/rss.xml
The American Prospect - articles by authorenTrading Arms for Farmshttp://prospect.org/article/trading-arms-farms-0
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>Finally home from combat in Iraq, Steve Edwards felt detached from his friends and family.</p>
<p>Edwards had witnessed the <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/19/1441257">highly publicized</a> death of his friend, California National Guardsman Patrick McCaffrey, in June 2004. Edwards was the first to tell Patrick's mother what the military would not: Patrick was shot by the Iraqi soldier he was training. The Pentagon eventually <a href="http://www.libertysflame.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=1214&amp;Disp=All ">acknowledged</a> these claims in 2006. </p>
<p>Edwards himself was also injured by a roadside bomb that left him with a limp. </p>
<p>"I was happy to be home; I was happy to be with my wife and daughter again," Edwards said. "But even with family, I just didn't feel like I belonged anymore. At least, I didn't feel like I belonged around people like my wife and daughter, who were just innocent." </p>
<p>Suffering from acute post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Edwards withdrew. One particularly dark night, he called Patrick's mother, Nadia McCaffrey, who had been counseling many veterans who had served with her son. Edwards had locked himself in a room, and wouldn't come out, he told Nadia, until he understood what was happening to him. </p>
<p>The next day, Nadia arranged for Edwards to get help -- not through treatment at a Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital, but at a monastery in Oregon. Edwards' plight solidified what Nadia had already been thinking: Struggling war veterans need to get back to the land to find peace. </p>
<p>In 2007, Nadia created the Veterans’ Village, an organization seeking farmland where veterans can work and rehabilitate. Construction is nearly finished on a farm in Sonoma County, California, and additional "villages" are planned for upstate New York and North Carolina. </p>
<p>"The only thing that helped him was to get him to a different state of mind," she said. "I hear it over and over [from vets] that they just want to be out in nature. Why? Because its freedom. It's not a challenge. And it's really satisfying for them when they plant something and watch it grow. It's not for everybody. But many of the veterans will find peace this way." </p>
<p><b>An Unfamiliar Life</b> </p>
<p>Earlier this month, CBS <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2007/11/16/primarysource/entry3515971.shtml">reported</a> that over 120 veterans committed suicide each week in 2005. Around the same time, a U.S. Army survey found that 25 percent of active-duty soldiers and 50 percent of reservists were receiving or needed mental health services after combat. Almost <a href="http://www.naeh.org/content/article/detail/1839">a quarter</a> of America's homeless population are war veterans. </p>
<p>"Our veterans are coming home, but they're not being taken care of the way they should," Nadia said. Spit out by the war machine, veterans often <a href="http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_vas_claim_dodge">encounter</a> red tape and hoops at the VA. </p>
<p>"Most vets, when they come back, especially the younger vets, they don't realize the benefits they have because the military doesn't tell them," Edwards said. "And the VA doesn't exactly say, 'Hey, come on back to the VA, we'll help you out.' They don't advertise. You don't know where to get help. You're lost." </p>
<p>Along with being rebuffed by the VA, Edwards said it was difficult when his family tried to understand what he had been through in Iraq. </p>
<p>"You already feel awkward enough about what you've gone through," Edwards said. "But [your family is] sitting there trying to understand you instead of accepting you; it makes you feel even more detached." </p>
<p>Day-to-day tasks became difficult for Edwards. Being in a crowd of people was especially trying. "There were a lot of crowds [in Iraq], a lot of confusion and activity going on," Edwards said. "When I get out in crowds and around a lot of people, I become very anxious and that army training, that hyper-vigilance of wanting to pay attention to everything and everybody and look for escape routes, that kicks in." </p>
<p>Nadia, who has perhaps stepped in to help mentor veterans the way she would have comforted her own son, says soldiers like Edwards are just not easily able to reintegrate into society. </p>
<p>"The life that was so familiar to them in the past has become something completely foreign to them," Nadia said. "They don't fit anymore. They don't function as the father, the husband, or the son that they were." </p>
<p>When Nadia first began envisioning the Veterans’ Village, she asked Edwards to join her. He agreed, and is now a board member of the organization. </p>
<p>Edwards is hopeful that a farming environment will be healing for veterans. "It's peaceful and tranquil," he said. "You're getting back to nature. You're getting back to the earth. Just the serenity of being on a farm will really help a great number of vets struggling with PTSD or finding their place in society again." </p>
<p><b>Veterans Make New Farmers </b> </p>
<p>Nadia and Edwards aren't alone in their back-to-the-land philosophy. They're joined by dozens of other organizations and small farms across the country looking to place struggling vets in agricultural communities. </p>
<p>Along with assisting Nadia with acquiring the land for the first Veterans’ Village in California, the organization Farms Not Arms is helping veterans connect with seasonal jobs and internships on farms across the nation. The organization is <a href="http://farmsnotarms.org/About%20Us/Default.aspx">supported</a> by the Family Farm Defenders, Global Exchange, and a <a href="http://farmsnotarms.org/About%20Us/Farms%20And%20Other%20Supporters.aspx">long list</a> of farms and businesses. </p>
<p>Farms are "a place to give [vets] work and vocational training and just a healthy living environment," said Michael O'Gorman, one of the founders of <a href="http://www.farmsnotarms.org/">Farms Not Arms</a>. </p>
<p>Another coalition, the <a href="http://www.farmvetco.org/">Farmer-Veteran Coalition</a>, is bridging the relationship between farmers and vets. And the organization <a href="http://veteranhomestead.org/">Veteran Homestead</a> has built "Victory Farm," a supportive housing program for veterans located on an 80-acre working organic vegetable farm in New Hampshire. </p>
<p>O'Gorman says the agriculture push is not one-sided. Just as veterans have been affected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so too have rural and farming communities in the United States. According to a 2007 Carsey Institute study, young adults from rural areas enlist in the military at disproportionately higher rates than other areas because of lack of other opportunities. The <a href="http://www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu/documents/FS9.pdf">study</a> concluded that the death rate for rural soldiers was 48 percent higher than the rate for soldiers from the city or suburbs. </p>
<p>"We're in such dire need of new farmers that maybe by bringing the veterans onto the farms as a place to heal, we can also hopefully find some new young blood to go into agriculture," O'Gorman said. "It's kind of a mutual self-help thing." </p>
<p>Since its inception, Farms Not Arms has been highlighting the affects of U.S. militarism on rural communities. He said farmers are "being written off, or sacrificed for this war." Their anti-war message is rooted in opposing the "enormous waste of resources" for war that threatens farm work, according to the Web site. </p>
<p>"We're really on the front lines of this war because of the heavy tolls it's taking on the rural communities," O'Gorman said. "And we're on the front line of global warming because we deal with it in our vocation. We're dealing with the loss of farmers and farm land. So we're really seeing all of these issues tied together as upside-down priorities of our country." </p>
<p>O'Gorman, who has been farming for 37 years, says the biggest farming crisis is the lack of new, young farmers. "With free trade agreements, people just think we can get the food from somewhere else," he said. "I don't think that's healthy for our national security, or for the quality of our life or our food. We're going to wake up one day and regret that we didn't train a new generation of people how to feed ourselves." </p>
<p>For Edwards, he's just hoping a little farm work will go a long way in helping veterans. "I don't care what war, what era. I just want better help and better care for any and all veterans."</p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:22:38 +0000146845 at http://prospect.orgMegan TadyMall Madness as Janitors Try to Unionizehttp://prospect.org/article/mall-madness-janitors-try-unionize-0
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>While shoppers at Paramus Park Mall in New Jersey push their feet into gleaming new Nikes, untwist salty soft pretzels, and stride past pasty-white plastic mannequins cloaked in fall fashion, janitors are polishing the floors with unease.</p>
<p>As part of a wider campaign to free mall workers from low wages and unfair working conditions, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) began organizing janitors employed by the cleaning contractor Service Management Systems (SMS) at Paramus Park. Within weeks, workers say supervisors with SMS threatened to fire anyone who supported the union. </p>
<p>"We work everyday with fear," Christian Valle, a janitor at Permaus Park, told <i>The American Prospect</i> through an interpreter. Valle said he wanted to join the union for "job security" because "sometimes [SMS doesn't] pay us the full hours, they raise their voices at us, and they threaten to fire us so we don't become part of the union." </p>
<p>In July, SEIU filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board against SMS, citing interrogation, surveillance, and coercive statements and threats against workers joining the union. SEIU is the nation's largest union, representing more than 225,000 janitors. </p>
<p>The complaint against SMS was just the beginning, as SEIU documented a more systemic practice of intimidation against union-affiliated workers in malls owned by General Growth Properties. In August, SEIU filed six more unfair labor practice charges against cleaning contractors hired by General Growth, and one specifically against the corporation itself. Then in September, SEIU filed 10 more unfair labor practice charges against the company. </p>
<p>Workers allege that at Glendale Galleria in California, one of more than 200 General Growth-owned malls spread throughout 44 states, supervisors of SMS illegally threatened and interrogated employees engaged in union activity. </p>
<p>Several states away, workers at Park Meadows Mall in Lone Tree, Colorado, claim that supervisors of the Millard Group, another General Growth cleaning contractor, threatened to reduce wages and forced workers to remove union insignia. SEIU also charges that General Growth officials spied on union representatives. </p>
<p>At the Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, Washington, workers again say General Growth's contractor Millard Group threatened and interrogated union-supporting workers, and even illegally fired one employee for her union activity. </p>
<p>Among the most recent charges, workers allege that General Growth is attempting to undermine union support with promises of increased wages and benefits. The National Labor Relations Board is currently investigating all of the claims. </p>
<p>SMS rejected an interview request from <i>The American Prospect</i>, but said in a written statement, "We deny the allegation and are cooperating with the NLRB in its review. It would be entirely inappropriate for us to comment further while the matter is being evaluated." The Millard Group did not comment. And General Growth also refused to be interviewed, but David Keating, director of corporate communications, said the "allegations are false" and that the charges are part of an "orchestrated corporate campaign against General Growth" at the command of SEIU. </p>
<p>SEIU began organizing mall workers in 2006 by focusing on the owner-contractor relationships of Simon Properties Group and Westfield Properties, two of the nation's largest mall owners. Like General Growth, Simon Properties and Westfield both use cleaning contractors, and SEIU urged the companies to commit to hiring contractors who pay good wages, provide health care, and respect workers' rights to unionize. </p>
<p>In December 2006, SEIU announced a partnership with the two mall owners who agreed to only hire responsible contractors, and the union has since moved on to target General Growth. SEIU says that while workers at 20 General Growth-owned malls have recently joined with the union, the corporation has yet to make a similar commitment. Although the company has offered higher wages since the organizing drive began, Manny Pastreich, deputy director of SEIU's property service division, says the gesture is empty without General Growth's recognition of workers' union rights. </p>
<p>"Today General Growth gives people raises, tomorrow they could take them away," said Pastreich. "And if there's no protection for those workers, as soon as the glare of an organizing campaign is gone, General Growth can go back to a low-bid contractor and those workers could lose all those gains." </p>
<p>While the contractors need to be held accountable for their treatment of workers, Pastreich said it's the owners who influence contractors' policies. "If tomorrow General Growth said they wanted to reduce their cleaning costs, they could re-bid their contracts," Pastreich said. "They re-bid the contract and they pick the lowest bids. And the way those companies give the lowest bids is lower wages." </p>
<p>Pastreich said SEIU is working to spread the message that responsible contracting is a smart investment. "We're trying to change from, 'How do I reduce my costs to the minimum level,' to ‘How do I get good value by treating the workers right?'" </p>
<p>With mall owners cashing in on shoppers' buying habits, SEIU maintains that companies should be able to absorb the costs of elevating working conditions. General Growth is valued at $35 billion. </p>
<p>"There's no excuse for malls," Pastriech said. "These companies bring in billions of dollars of revenue. There's no excuse to use low-wage contractors, and there's no excuse for them to not allow workers the right to organize." </p>
<p>Yet working everyday in an environment depicting enormous wealth, Valle, originally from Peru, makes just $11 an hour and does not have health insurance. He said he feels inspired by the unity of his co-workers, but it hasn't stopped his unease and frustration. </p>
<p>"We feel impotent because [SMS doesn't] respect the rights that we have as workers," Valle said.</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:09:48 +0000146710 at http://prospect.orgMegan TadyTracking Pharma Gifts to Doctorshttp://prospect.org/article/tracking-pharma-gifts-doctors
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>While it's no secret that pharmaceutical companies lavish gifts on doctors -- everything from free notepads and pens to meals to the more extravagant paid trips or seminars -- most patients are in the dark about who, exactly, is courting their physicians. But Congress may be finally acknowledging this relationship, one important step toward creating a national gift registry so patients can track the perks Big Pharma is giving to their doctors.</p>
<p>In June, the nonprofit government watchdog Public Citizen testified before the Senate Special Committee on Aging in favor of federal legislation that would require drug companies to disclose payments to doctors. But the group urged lawmakers, before jumping on the proposal, to examine a Petri dish of existing disclosure laws. Although four states and the District of Columbia already have disclosure laws on the books, the group says they are "inadequate" and do not give patients a clear picture of how money is changing hands. </p>
<p>The pharmaceutical industry spent an estimated $25.3 billion peddling prescription drugs in 2003, and much of that money went to physicians in the form of free samples, meals, conference fees, air fares, and continuing medical education activities. The only reins on Big Pharma's giveaway are <a href="http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/4001.html">voluntary regulations</a> set by the American Medical Association (AMA) and <a href="http://www.phrma.org/files/PhRMA%20Code.pdf">adopted by</a> the trade association Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. The AMA's ethical guidelines, which are supposed to "prevent inappropriate gift-giving practices," only sanction gifts valued at $100 or less. </p>
<p>The pharmaceutical industry is <a href="http://www.phrma.org/files/Tough_Questions.pdf ">adamant</a> that these gifts have no influence on which drugs physicians prescribe to their patients. But a growing body of evidence shows that drug companies' generosity may in fact be guiding the pen across the prescription pad. </p>
<p> "The drug industry doesn't spend $20 or $30 billion a year on advertising prescription drugs unless they believe it has an impact on doctors prescribing," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group. "You would probably like to know whether your doctor is getting no money, some money, a lot of money, or a huge amount of money, because it's going to influence what that doctor decides for you." </p>
<p>Public Citizen says a federal disclosure law would give patients the ability to track their doctors' financial ties to drug companies. "We need a strong, uniform national law that requires every state [to have] these kinds of disclosures," Wolfe said. "State laws are better than nothing, but filled with problems." </p>
<p>In March, Wolfe (along with three other physicians and one medical student) published a paper in The <i>Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)</i> that analyzed Vermont's and Minnesota's publicly available disclosures of payments made to doctors from 2002 to 2004. The researchers concluded that both states' laws failed "to provide the public with easy access to information about these payments," and were "insufficient for revealing the true patterns of payments." </p>
<p>In Vermont, patients can obtain an <a href="http://www.atg.state.vt.us/upload/1150802902_2006_Pharmaceutical_Marketing_Disclosures_Report.pdf">annual summary report</a> detailing how much money drug companies have given to health-care providers, and the form and purpose of the payment. The report does not, however, list recipients by name, but rather uses generic terms, such as "family practice" or "oncology." Patients cannot search for their specific doctor, nor is the information available in an online database. </p>
<p>Vermont's reporting requirements have also been criticized for allowing pharmaceutical companies to claim a "trade secret" exemption, which protects them from disclosing many of their payments to doctors. Assistant Attorney General Julie Brill defended Vermont's report, saying it "does an analysis that we think gives the public a pretty complete picture of what is going on, although it doesn't name names." </p>
<p>Brill also said there were holes in the <i>JAMA</i> article, which she said "never discussed the reason for the trade secret exemption." Brill said Vermont's laws protecting trade secrets are broadly written, and the legislature feared drug companies would legally challenge the disclosure law if the trade secret exemption was not extended to them. "We would not like to see the [disclosure] law struck down, or be stuck in limbo, while this trade secret issue is being litigated," Brill said. </p>
<p>The <i>JAMA</i> authors recommended that disclosure statements be made available online, but Brill countered that in Vermont, "it was never envisioned that there was going to be a website where people could have access to data. That takes money; that takes time." </p>
<p>In Minnesota, researchers found that payment data was never compiled into a report or a database, and that to obtain the records, they had to physically travel to the state’s Board of Pharmacy's office and make photocopies themselves. Since then, the documents have been digitally scanned and are available online. Unlike in Vermont, the vast majority of the disclosure statements do contain doctors' names. But Cody Wiberg, the board’s director, said that patients wanting to find information about their doctors "may have to do a little work" because the documents have not been indexed by the doctor's last name. "Admittedly, it's not searchable," Wiberg said. "You actually have to go through document by document, and there are thousands of documents." </p>
<p>Wiberg said the state's poor showing in the <i>JAMA</i> article can be attributed to a lack of money and clear direction from the legislature. The board plans to hire additional clerical staff and expects to create a searchable database in the coming year, according to Wiberg. </p>
<p>During the Senate hearing last month, Public Citizen also offered analysis of disclosure laws in two other states, Maine and West Virginia, plus the District of Columbia. Dr. Peter Lurie, deputy director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, testified, "Although these statutes are undoubtedly intended to increase the transparency of the physician-pharmaceutical company relationship, it is clear that all fall well short of their aspirations." </p>
<p>And while these laws are falling short, the vast majority of states have no disclosure laws at all. </p>
<p> "One of the standards for [deciding if] it's appropriate to take a gift from a company is asking, 'What would my patients think if they knew out about this?'" Wolfe said. "Since most doctors don't even have to face the prospect of their patients finding out about it, they can evade that test. And none of them should be able to evade that test." </p>
<p>Wolfe said a federal disclosure law would offer patients better protection. "Ideally, patients should be able to go to some central, national, online database, put in the name of their doctor, and get all the gifts the doctor has gotten from all of these companies," he said. "We are nowhere near that yet. Slowly, it might happen at a state level, but ideally it should happen at a federal level so you can have the same requirements affecting doctors in Maine or Massachusetts or Montana or California." </p>
<p>Following Public Citizen's testimony, Democratic Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/washington/28doctors.html?ex=1185422400&amp;en=640494ef8d2fb2a3&amp;ei=5070">said they intended</a> to push for a national registry. McCaskill's press office would not give details about any forthcoming legislation, but said the senator has "moved in the direction of a national disclosure registry for gifts to physicians." </p>
<p>''If it becomes a public record, it will have a cleansing effect on what I think is an insidious practice,'' McCaskill told the <i>Miami Herald</i> in July. </p>
<p>To avoid the same pitfalls as the state laws, Wolfe said Congress has to "be serious" about creating legislation that does not shield drug companies and doctors. But with lawmakers remaining mum about it, it is too early to tell if possible legislation will have any teeth. </p>
<p>But even as Public Citizen is advocating for a national disclosure law, it admits that such measures are simply a Band-Aid for a more systemic problem – that pharmaceutical companies are allowed to give gifts to doctors in the first place. As Lurie <a href="http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7531#_ftnref4">told</a> the Special Committee on Aging, "Payment disclosure laws are a first step toward addressing the problem, but they are not the only method or even necessarily the most effective one."</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:54:34 +0000146518 at http://prospect.orgMegan Tady